Advances in medicine have greatly extended the life expectancy of persons all over the world. As the population ages, more and more individuals seek to maintain their independence and quality of life, even as their mobility decreases. An elderly or disabled individual may first use a cane to help maintain a mobile lifestyle. Later, that same individual may require the assistance of a walker. Persons who use walkers to assist in mobility often would benefit from assistance in rising from a seat. Current walkers do not provide assistance in both rising and walking.
Known walking assist devices provide varying proficiency in assisting a person wishing to rise from a seated position. Each displays varying degrees of deficiency relating to the instability of the device and/or the ease of use. By their designs, the support handles that are intended for assisting an individual in rising from a seated position are either unstable or positioned inconveniently to a person in a seated position behind the walker. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a walker which is both stable and configured to adjust to the height of the user and to provide properly located handles to assist a user in both rising from and lowering to a seated position.
Hence, a need exists for an improved walker which provides assistance when a person wants to rise from a seated position, wants to descend to a seated position, and when that person wants to walk from one place to another. The walker device discussed below incorporates several significant design changes that improve the overall function and utility of the walker. The walker device disclosed herein is an improvement over those known in the art.